They Speak
by Glitchek
Summary: Alfred has a companion cube and these are the stories of the two
1. They Speak

|| "Those things. They speak. They say things. They mess with you. She told me they didn't speak. But they do. And they say so much." ||

* * *

The mumbling and grumbling, it just wouldn't stop. It kept going on and on and they would never cease. They spoke about things like life and death and the meaning of life and the meaning of death and what happened after, but they never spoke to him. Almost never.

It was until it was late at night -or was it early in the morning? Alfred didn't know, he had broken his clock long ago-, that was when they spoke to him. They asked him to speak to them, they talked about Aperture and how she was manipulative and that he shouldn't listen to her. They never said her name, no, they didn't want her to hear.

Sometimes they talked about him as if he wasn't even there. They talked about his face and his hair, they talked about how he still had use of his body. They sometimes complimented him too. They said how his voice was so nice, so smooth. But Alfred never spoke.

He always wondered how they could see him, how they knew what he looked like. He wanted to say things back, tell them that their voice was lovely and that their body was nice too. But his voice always died in his throat, never coming out. Unlike theirs.

Their voice always sounded so far, so.. muffled. Like something was covering it. Alfred was scared whenever they spoke, he hated it. He hated that he had no one to speak to yet the only thing that was attempting to speak to him was the cube.

The companion cube.

It speaks.


	2. Care

|| _Take good care of it and it will take good care of you._

But how can it take care of me, its just a cube.

_The cube does not speak but it will care for you._

But the cube** does** speak. And you're a **liar**. ||

So many thoughts drifted in and out of Alfred's mind as he thought about the cube. He wondered how it was able to talk without a mouth, but most things in Aperture could do that, he just tends to forget. That was expected too, since there were deadly fumes everywhere bar a few rooms. Just the smell of that deadly, goopy, liquid that covered the floor in some rooms was enough to knock someone out if they we rent careful.

Those words, the words that the cube would somehow care for him, were said to him long ago, A while before everything stopped working and the other testers were never seen again. He missed them, he thought to himself solemnly, wondering if they were okay and where they were. Maybe they were still in Aperture, just not here?

Back to the cube. He thought about how the cube was just.. a cube. It was only a cube. Yet it was able to do so much. He had slowly become attached to the pink and white object, ending up calling it CC as it was easier and quicker to say than "Companion Cube". The voice that came from the cube was feminine most of the time but others, it was deeper, more masculine. He had quieter thoughts that maybe there wasn't just CC in there. Maybe CC had someone else in there with them.

Every now and then, when he wasn't so freaked out over the fact that a cube was talking to him and giving him advice, he would talk back. That was so rare though, and CC loved it. They always expressed their happiness when he spoke. Maybe it was lonely in there, where-ever CC is (although, he always had an idea that maybe they were a person in that box).

One day, he asked them about who they were. He said "Do you have a gender?" CC replied, "Yes, i was once female but any gender is fine." Their voice was happy and cheerful just like usual. Alfred was confused (what did they mean 'was once female?' Were they assigned a gender when made?) but still continued.

"Do you have a name?"

"CC is my name. You gave it to me."

They knew that wasn't what Alfred meant but he wasn't about to question them. Alfred thought back to when he was still walking about the building, trying to find his way out. He had come across a small room with a fan just beneath the floor. There were many scribbles on the walls, a large drawing of a girl in a suit like his, and pictures of people with a picture of the cube stuck over them. They were singed by "-Ratman". He didn't know who he was but he had, strangely, come to want to know them.

Thinking back, he thought about the pictures of the people with the cube stuck over their faces. Alfred wondered what that meant, did Ratman like the cube? Did he see the cube as a person? Maybe he should have read those scribble's carefully.

"Do you know anyone called Ratman?" Alfred suddenly blurted out with. He hadn't meant to, it just kind of slipped out.

The cube went silent.

It was a while before they spoke again, their voice quiet, "We don't speak about Ratman." Was the only reply he got.

He wasn't about to push it so he nodded and got up from his place on the cold floor, wiping his jumpsuit down and bending over to pick up the cube he had placed in front of him. With the portal gun secured on his arm and the cube at his side, he began walking through the leaves and vines to get to the next room and continue his adventure in Aperture, so he could hopefully see the light of day once more.


End file.
